


A Wolf In Gardener's Clothing

by sisaat



Category: Leverage
Genre: Chance Meetings, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 15:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10665867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisaat/pseuds/sisaat
Summary: Pre-series, Nate and Eliot meet on a job.





	A Wolf In Gardener's Clothing

From his spot on the sidewalk, Nate could see the mark's window. He knew no one was home right now,. The man wouldn't come back for another hour, and he knew he hadn't sold Mrs. White's stolen antique jewelry yet, so it must be in there, but he hadn't decided his best course of action yet. Try to gain access to his apartment while he was away, somehow? Wait for him to return and run a con on him?

There wasn't much to see from outside the building. A strip of grass separating it from the street, a short walkway and a small hedge that didn't afford much cover. Of more interest to him was the man in a green uniform tending the hedge. He doubted the gardener had access to the building, but he might have information that he could use. 

Nate was wondering how to approach him when the man spotted him and gave him a cheerful wave. He seemed like a friendly fellow, with large horn-rimmed glasses and a wide and slightly crooked smile. Nate tentatively waved back. The gardener abandoned his work and came to him, which was... convenient.

"Hi," Nate greeted him. "I'm with the Association of–"

Before Nate could get into his made-up-on-the-spot story, the previously harmless-looking gardener grabbed his tie, pulled him down to eye-level and pressed the point of his hedge shears into Nate's throat. That was less convenient. He hadn't even tried to recover the missing jewelry yet and he was already being threatened with gardening tools. Nothing about his research on the mark had suggested guards posing as gardeners were a possibility.

"Ford? IYS?" The gardener growled at him. So, his not-even-established-yet cover was blown. Which, he realized now, was the least of his problems.

"Spencer? Didn't recognize you there."

He had never met Eliot Spencer in person before. He had actively avoided meeting him, in fact. The few times he ended up chasing him, he waited until the stolen property was out of Spencer's hands. There was no point in going after the retrieval specialist when he could go after his clients. They were both less dangerous and less paranoid. But right now it looked like he didn't have a choice.

"Go back home, Ford. Stay out of this."

The large horn-rimmed glasses did little to make his stare less intimidating, especially this close to his face. Nate swallowed. The smart thing to do was to agree and increase his chance of surviving this encounter so he could take a step back and reevaluate. But he needed information. He needed to know how Eliot Spencer was involved in this.

"IYS–"

"Won't have to pay," Spencer growled. He sounded like he resented having to tell him that, so it was probably true.

"What do you mean? If I don't get Mrs. White's antique jewelry back to her–"

"She'll get it back. Won't matter to IYS how, as long as they don't have to pay a cent."

Nate was starting to connect the dots.

"She hired you." Spencer just nodded. His grip on the tie loosened a little and the hedge shears didn't press as hard into this throat. Not enough that Nate could get away, but the sense of immediate threat was lessened. He should probably just shut up and let the man go on to do his job, but he had always been overly talkative and with a poor sense of self-preservation. "Her husband hired the thief, didn't he? When he couldn't convince his wife to sell her mother's jewelry to pay his gambling debt?"

"Probably. She thinks so. Ain't my job to care."

"But it's mine," Nate said, the wheels in his head spinning. "If Stefan White is guilty of insurance fraud..."

Spencer lost interest in him at that point. He released Nate's tie and took a step back. Nate cleared his throat, loosened his tie and rubbed the spot where the shears had pressed into his flesh.

"Just get away from here," Spencer growled and turned to walk away.

"Nice working with you."

"We're not working together. I'm doing my job and you're staying out of my way."

"Right. Of course."

He watched Spencer go back to trimming the hedge as if nothing had happened. This was a good turn of events, he told himself. Spencer was the best at what he did. The jewelry would make it back to Mrs. White. IYS wouldn't have to pay. And Nate could say he met Eliot Spencer and survived.

He rubbed his throat again.

* * *

That night when he got back to his hotel room and found it broken into, nothing was missing, but a (slightly bloody) phone had been left on the bed. It turned out to contain a series of text messages that was all Nate needed to prove that Stefan White had hired a thief to steal his wife's jewelry.

"Nice working with you," Nate told the empty room.

**Author's Note:**

> So far in all but one of my Leverage fics, Eliot either cooks or garden. It's a thing, apparently.


End file.
